Figure
by WackyD
Summary: Set around a month after the end of the play, Maureen attempts to figure out her life and love. Just what the hell is it anyway? So far her attempts are...pretty much failing.
1. I: Departures

Figure

Chapter I: Departures

**Author's Note**: I very seriously doubt if I really captured Maureen in this, but I tried. Next chapter won't come for a while as I'm off to camp.

_"I can't find my way in _

_I try again and again _

_I'm on the outside of love _

_Always under or above _

Must be a different view 

_To be a me with a you _

_Of course I'll be all right _

_I just had a bad night—_

_I know the last page so well I can't read the first."_

_--Inside of Love, Nada Surf_

"Maureen, I can't take much more of this."

Joanne was lecturing in her courtroom voice, the one she reserved for an argumentive client or a particularly important trial. She was in her persuasive lawyer stance as well—arms folded across her chest, feet planted firmly on the floor, and eyes boring into those of her girlfriend's.

"Is it because I flirted with the girl with the red feather boa?" Maureen feigned innocence, smiling coyly. Usually that was the best way to go.

Joanne simply glared at her. "There was more than one girl." The lawyer sighed. "Maureen, why do you do this? Are you unsatisfied with me? With us?"

"Pookie, no, I—" Maureen didn't know why she was like this. "Isn't this what you love, though?" She asked weakly, feeling the firm ground she usually stood on in arguments such as this slipping away from her. Was Joanne angry enough to leave her?

"You think I love you when you're flirting with other people? Maureen, even you are smarter than that."

Maureen looked away, lips falling into their familiar pout. "I mean—isn't this the part of me that you love? The wild, the crazy… the spontaneous part?" _If you don't love that part, is there really anything left of me to love?_

Joanne raised a slim eyebrow at her. "The part that needs to have at least five girls or guys drooling over her at any given time?" The woman shook her head, but smiled. "Well…maybe a little."

She leaned over the table and kissed Maureen on the forehead. Maureen took note, from outside her body, of how soft her lips were.

Later that night, Joanne didn't forget to whisper an "I love you" before they went to sleep, even though she hadn't forgotten their fight. Maureen didn't answer but ran a hand through Joanne's hair.

Joanne never forgot to say I love you. She watched sappy old movies with Maureen and made popcorn, not the microwave type but the real kind. No matter how busy she was, she always tried to take Maureen out to lunch at least two or three times a week.

Maureen had never before understood how one person "deserved" or didn't deserve someone else. _If you love each other, that's enough, right?_ But now she understood that she didn't deserve Joanne. Just like she hadn't deserved Mark, who used to be able to watch her for hours behind his camera as she talked to the camera (and him) for hours about herself.

It was always about herself, wasn't it?

Maureen tried to ignore the thought, to tell herself that it wasn't true. But she had never really been comfortable with lying, especially to herself, and she knew that it was true.

She tossed and turned and didn't sleep at all that night.

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"Mark? Don't screeeeeen, it's Maureeeeen." It was early the next morning and Maureen was exhausted but still sounded cheery.

"Maureen? Why are you up at this hour?"

"Did you like my rhyme?" Maureen couldn't help asking, smiling to herself.

"What— Oh…screen, Maureen. I get it, exceedingly clever." Mark was unfailing cynical in the mornings.

"Anyway, is it okay if I come over? Is Roger there?"

"He's asleep so it's fine, what's up?"

"I'm bored, I just wanna talk." Maureen tried hard to sound offhand.

"Well, come on over then, I guess." Was she imagining it, or was there a slightly nervous quaver in Mark's voice?

Maureen hung up the phone and glanced at the kitchen table. Joanne had left a note on it, since she'd left very early for some lawyer's meeting.

_Honeybear_, it said. _I think we need to finish up our talk from last night._

_I'll pick up dinner from the Thai place. Love you, _

_Joanne._

Maureen didn't want to talk. Why couldn't things just be simple? She sighed. Because the real question was, why couldn't she just be satisfied with Joanne for once?

------------------------------------------------

"Why can't I just be satisfied with Joanne for once?"

Mark seemed to be paying more attention to his tea than to her. He stirred it once, added in a little more milk, and then sipped it carefully, blowing on it a few times.

"Marky!"

He seemed to wilt and collapse in on himself a little bit, eroding before her. "Maybe you two just need some time apart?"

"No… Marky, no. You know I hate being alone, and I—" Maureen stopped, for Mark had pushed his chair back from the table rather violently and stood up, staring at her.

"I'm sorry, Maureen. I can't do this."

"Do…do what?" Maureen's eyes opened wide and she looked innocently at him.

Mark wildly kneaded his hands together and then briefly put his face in his hands. He straightened up, and she recognized the look on his face. She remembered while they were dating, the times he wore that expression were the times she loved him the most. It was the look that announced he had thrown down his camera and was about to say something he believed was deeply important. He was about to be part of or say something that really mattered. She tensed instinctively, waiting for the bomb to drop.

"I'm still in love with you, Maureen." There was the briefest of pauses between that statement and his next, a pause where Maureen found time to reel and then catch herself, grabbing tightly onto the edge of the table. "I'm still in love with you, and I can't sit around and give you advice about your girlfriend. I just can't do it, and I'm sorry." He took another, longer pause. "I think it's best if I just don't see you for a while, okay? I just want some time to get over you, because," He faltered for a moment, "It's hard."

"Marky…" Maureen tried to keep her voice soft and understanding, but she had no idea what to say. _Communication isn't my strong point. At least the talking kind._ "I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I—"

Mark wasn't looking at her. She stumbled in her attempt to run out the door. She'd fucked up, she knew it. "I'll just go, I think."

---------------------------------------------------------------

"And then he said he didn't want to see me for a while. To get over me." Maureen finished, staring into her coffee cup as if she could find the meaning to life in its depths.

"If he really loves me, then why is he leaving me?" She asked the man sitting opposite her plaintively.

"Maureen, honey…" Collins smiled warmly at her. "You've got a lot to learn about love."

"What?" Maureen was taken aback. "Collins, you're crazy! This is Maureen Johnson you're talking to, I know lots about love. I had and have Mark, Joanne…and countless others on the side and in between, of course." She gave him a big grin.

Collins shrugged. "If that's what you think love is."

Maureen sagged a little. _Why must everyone be so cryptic all the time?_ "Well, you had it with Angel, didn't you? The real thing, the true thing, and all that?"

Collins nodded, a faraway smile on his face.

"So tell me what it is."

"That, my dear Mo, is something you must figure out for yourself." Collins stood up. "I've got a class in a few minutes, so I'm sorry to say I'm going to have to leave your excellent company, my dear."

"Collins! Wait, hold on!" Maureen dragged him back through the door. "But, I haven't been myself lately, and it's freaking me out, and I just wish I knew what it really felt like, so maybe you could tell me so I could just figure things out! And then I could choose between Joanne and Mark, or maybe I won't have to choose, and I wouldn't be all worried like I am now, and—"

Collins gently shook his head at her. "This is one knot you've got to untangle yourself, Maureen. But I'll give you one word of advice—be careful. You're lucky to have what you have, and you don't want to lose it."

"COLLINS!" Maureen yelled at his retreating back as he left, stomping her foot loudly on the floor. "Fuck." She pouted rather childishly to herself. _Be careful of what?_

_And again, if he really loves me, then why is he leaving me?_

-----------------------------------------------------

"I think we need some time apart."

Maureen took deep breaths, tried to steady herself, failed, and then dropped her head on the kitchen counter with a loud clunk. She couldn't keep her voice from wavering, climbing octaves all over the place.

"WHY?" Her voice cracked in the middle of the word, though it was muffled since her mouth was pressed into the cool stone of the counter.

"I love you, Maureen." The words hung in the air for a moment. Maureen took another shaky breath before Joanne continued. "But I'm not sure if you return those feelings, so I'm compromising. I'll give you time to figure things out, and if you want to stay with me, I'll stay with you. But that's with no cheating, no flirting. And if you don't," Joanne looked sad for a moment, but the fair and firm lawyer in her prevailed, "I'll try and move on."

She picked up her neatly packed suitcase. "You can stay here, since I'll be staying with some friends."

She was almost out the door when she was hit by a swiftly moving avalanche with wild and curly hair. Maureen nearly mauled Joanne as she forced her away from the doorway, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Why? I don't want to figure things out I want someone and that's you and I don't want you to leave me please please please cause Mark already left me and I can't take it this isn't what love should be like I just need to find out what it is and then I won't need to cheat anymore I promise and oh if you really love me then why would you ever leave me?"

This was all said very fast and at top volume but the last statement was decipherable enough and Joanne sighed. "Love isn't doing what the other person wants, honeybear. It's doing what the other person needs."

She kissed Maureen quickly and then was gone, leaving a deeply upset woman behind her, who kicked the door offhandedly, hurt her foot, and crawled over to the couch to sulk and wonder.

_Need, want, it's the same thing, right? Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck_. She massaged her foot and groaned quietly. _I think I know what I need._

Maureen put on her favorite shirt and a pair of shockingly red leather pants, grabbed her purse and went out. Realization flooded her as she stepped outside—it was goddamn January, and here she was without a coat.

She almost went back inside to get it but the lure of the night and the ice was too much and she walked on down the street, the cold freezing her in that most peculiar way that made all of her senses briefly acute and the air in her lungs burn like fire. It felt wonderful.

She sat down at the bar and ordered a few beers, chatted up some guys, some girls, but then _Screw it, I'm single and I'm all alone and I'll admit it I'm fucking scared—cause nobody wants me _ she progressed quickly to vodka and accepted a joint that one of the guys passed to her furtively.

Maureen didn't usually like weed but tonight was a special occasion. She went home with some guy and then found some girl in another bar that she liked and then made friends with some band and smoked some more and went home with them and then before she knew it two days had passed and she felt like she was failing but at least she knew that people still wanted her.

But she was beginning to understand that they didn't need her. _And I wish I didn't._


	2. II: Thaw Final version!

Figure

Part II: Thaw

It was late out. And it was three days after my little sex and alcohol binge. I hadn't left the loft in that time. Joanne called once, just to see how I was doing, but her words were short and terse, with nothing left in them. I wasn't a fool, I could tell it was over already. I was trying hard not to be bitter. It was pretty obvious the "friend" she had been staying with had ended up being more. I was trying so hard not to be so bitter.

But Mark hadn't called.

_So. This is what being loved feels like. _I must have thought that a thousand fucking times over the past three days. I wanted myself to just shut the hell up, end the pity party, get back to ME, that vivacious maniac girl, the definition of a female. The real me, the real me. It was all I clung to.

I was clinging, and it was late out, and my blood was close to boiling. I struggled to find myself and put on a bright purple miniskirt. A black shirt. Brushed my hair. The comb got caught.

Multiple tangles. I threw it at the wall and did something I hadn't done since something like seventh grade—forced my hair into a ponytail. I felt vulnerable and yet empowered.

Out the door. Down the street. It was only about ten—not as late as I had previously thought. In the same breath I hoped that no one would be there that I knew and hoped that someone would.

_I'm tired of this love thing. Seriously, this is too much goddamn trouble. I don't want to understand it, when I can just fake it. Joanne and Mark will come back. They want another fuck, so they'll come back. That's how it goes. I think. And if Mark had never admitted that he still wanted me, none of this would have happened._

How is that someone telling you that they care about you can make you feel so alone?

Because he admitted that he cares about you, but he wishes he didn't. He wants to get over you.

I'd forgotten a coat again, but I made it to the Life Café just the same.

The first really clear thing I remember after walking in is throwing a glass at the wall. In it's shattering it made a much louder noise than I'd expected.

My thoughts before that are just jumbled images. Seeing Roger and Mimi look up, startled as I walked in the door. Seeing Collins sitting at the bar, drinking a Stoli.

Seeing Mark seated at one of those little tables for two in the back, trading spit with some girl with soft brown hair. That's how I could se him describing her in his head as they kissed. It was gentle, but not overly intimate, a little forced, awkward, but hopeful. Desperate. Or at least that's how they looked to me.

But that's when my blood boiled over and I picked up a glass off the table near them and threw it at the wall. Then everything came back into clear focus.

Roger, Mimi, and Collins tried to stop me, grabbing at my arms. I heard snatches of their words rush past my ears.

"…Maureen, just calm down…"

"…it's just Mark, I thought you were over him—"

"…don't make a scene"

I broke free and fucking paraded down to his table.

_It was one of the first times Mark had seen her with her mass of hair pulled back from her face. It made her cheekbones more prominent and brought her eyes into play. They blazed. He'd never seen anyone look so striking or so dangerous._

"So." I spat out, as if trying to rid my mouth as quickly as possible of the words I was about to utter, "This is what love is, huh? Thanks for showing me, Mark. Thanks for fucking _illuminating_ my life with meaning, you bast—"

He cut me off by standing up very quickly, with that look in his eyes again. "_Don't act like you're the martyr here._ Don't even start. I can't even count how many times you used to cheat on me—and I'm not even goddamn cheating!"

"Of course not," I countered. "I mean, hooking up with some random whore FIVE FUCKING DAYS after you tell someone you love them—that's fine! That's goddamn peachy. Didn't take you long to get over me, did it?"

The girl sitting with Mark quietly got up to leave about then. I ignored her. I also ignored the entire rest of the café staring at me. I don't think I was even aware of anyone but Mark at this point.

"Given the way you stormed out of the apartment after I told you, I figured there was no point in waiting around for a slut like you to finish fucking the whole city," He said icily.

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard it began to bleed. Rarely had Mark said anything so harsh to me—sometimes when he was in a really bad mood, he insulted me—but never anything like this. I quavered for a moment, inwardly disgusted with myself.

"But you said you _loved me_." Even I could hear the desperation in my voice. Pathetic. Weak. Where was my mind?

But—didn't he understand that I needed some sign—something, anything—that would prove that I wasn't—that everyone wasn't—just fumbling around in the dark, searching for something that was never really there? I didn't want love for myself, but deep down I wanted it to exist anyway.

My face, with no hair obscuring it, left me vulnerable to his stare. I felt like my features were being eaten alive—he was stripping the flesh off my bones, I was naked.

I looked away just as he hissed out his next words.

"You don't understand love and you never will. You don't—don't deserve too."

I felt a burning feeling in my throat, eyes, chest. A sinking feeling in my stomach began too. Because didn't he have the right to say that? I had cheated on him, left him for a woman, misused our friendship countless times—and I was supposed to be over him. But I was, wasn't I? I tried to think about Joanne but found I couldn't picture her.

I refused to break down in front of the entire Life Café. Mimi reached for my hand as I quietly walked out but pulled back when I gave her a furious look. Collins and Roger were staring at me.

I went outside into the frozen night—still no coat and wandered up and down the streets for a while.

It was around midnight when I heard his voice.

"You're going to catch pneumonia."

He tried to put his stupid plaid jacket around my shoulders. I pulled it off and slapped him in the face.

"Maureen. What I said back there…"

"Spare me," was all I could muster. I started walking away.

"I-I still love you."

The words stopped me for only a moment. I shuddered and kept walking.

"That girl back there—she was just a friend of Collins. Shit, I don't even remember her _name_. They were all trying to convince me to try and get over you, and it's been so goddamn hard, Maureen, that I gave in. I'm sorry."

Mark, ever the quiet yet forceful apologizer. I knew I'd been in the wrong too—hated my confused feelings and took it out on him.

"I'm sorry too." My voice was dull, tired.

Mark paused a moment. "I'm just tired of the way I keep on coming back to you. My life's at a standstill—and you've made it clear you don't want me." His eyes asked, _Have you really? What the hell was with you tonight—were you jealous?_

I was shivering. It must have been close to twenty fucking degrees out. "So you want to really get over me this time. Forget about me. Pretend I never existed. It'll be easy. It'll be fun."

"I seem to recall you doing about the same to me with Joanne," he said, almost gently.

I suddenly realized I was crying.

_Her face, starkly pale in the moonlight, was glistening. My hands ached to cup her face in their palms and tell her that everything was going to be okay. But defiant Mark and lovelorn Mark suddenly came to an agreement about what to do, and it didn't involve me, spineless Mark._

"Shit." I wiped my eyes furiously.

"Maureen—say it."

I shook my head desperately.

"Just tell me you love me. You threw a fucking glass at the wall—what the hell were you feeling?" He begged, his hands suddenly on my shoulders.

"Just say you love me, tell me. Please." I didn't know what to do. I longed to have my confidence back. I didn't want to be here, didn't want to choose, was ready to take the easy way out.

Here was Mark, being a man, spilling his guts for me, and I didn't want it. This love—what ever it was, was too deep. I couldn't handle it. I was afraid.

_I can't say it. Maybe I was jealous tonight, but jealousy doesn't mean much. Mark will leave, but he'll always stick around. He's under my thumb, no worries. Joanne too. They'll come back for another fuck, maybe love. I'll endure one and fake the other. I can make myself believe that want and love are the same thing. The old Maureen can deal with this. Letting people down is what I'm best at, because they'll always come back up at me. I just know I can't say it. Not to him. Afraid of commitment, I don't know. I just don't want to know about love. They'll come back._

They can try to get over me, but one fuck is all it'll take. They'll be back.

"Say you love me." He was shaking me slightly now, or maybe my shivering was just getting more violent. "Say it, tell me, please, say it—"

I buried my face in my hands. A snowflake brushed my thumb.

"Say it, say it, say it—" Say it, say it, say it.

"Please say it."

"I can't." I burst out suddenly, finally. "I'm sorry."

Mark turned away bitterly, tired. Not knowing what else to do, I ran the blocks home to the loft, snowflakes sticking to my face where it was still wet.

I realized along the way that I'd stopped shivering. At some point during his pleading, Mark must have put his plaid jacket around me again.

_Some fall in love _

_I shatter _

You make it rain.

_Too bleak, too stark. _

_Should night not fall you make things dark._

_Bang here am I _

_No one nowhere, no ground no sky, no light no air_

_-The Magnetic Fields_

_AN: Thanks for reading! I'm sorry for taking so long to put this chapter up, and it's not even that relevant to the first chapter...it was originally going to be a standalone but then I decided to fit it in. I need to work on the Joanne part though, kinda left her out. Maybe I'll continue the story with her, but this is probably the end. Thank you for all the reviews, whether they were good or bad. I always appreciate any thought. XD_


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